Vegan MoFo: The Wrap-Up

Vegan MoFo is officially over, and I have only one thing to say: I am one tired MoFoer!

But my favorite little lion wants to wish you a happy belated Halloween:

I'm really glad I did MoFo - I tried many new recipes, cooked many new cuisines, met some awesome fellow bloggers, and broke out of my cooking rut. But it was, I have to admit, very, very tiring! Between planning the meals, to cooking them, to blogging about them, scanning old pictures, researching stuff, and everything else, it was exhausting. I'm going to be taking a little hiatus to catch up on some other things, namely: reading for pleasure and watching excessive amounts of bad reality TV on Bravo.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you'd like to see in the future on my blog: different themes, cuisines, or whatever. Tell me what you'd like to see more of (and less of, if it's constructive criticism!) But please, I'd love to hear your comments. Comments mean the world to bloggers! Sometimes we feel like we are just talking to ourselves :) Thanks and peace xo

Vegan MoFo Day 29: Washington, D.C.

Today we're going to take a trip to our nation's capital. Even though D.C. is only a 7-hour drive away, I'm ashamed to say that I've only been there a handful of times in my life. Let's just say I suffer from an acute case of Rhode Island-itis. This condition dictates that anything that is more than, say, 15 minutes away is "too far" (or, as we like to say, "too fah.") What do you expect from us? It only takes an hour to traverse our state. We can pretty much have all of our needs taken care of within our puny little borders. Why on Earth would we willingly drive halfway down the Eastern Seaboard? Hmmm...something to ponder.

But anyway...the last time we ventured to D.C. was in April 2009. We drove down for a few days to see the sights and visit my hubby's family.

We were very excited to visit the International Spy Museum:

But, I must admit, we were even more fascinated by the Crime Museum. We got to see the set of America's Most Wanted and shake hands with McGruff the Crime Dog. We also got to see lots of crime instruments and tools, like these:

Yeah, I know - not too exciting, but none of the other pictures came out too well :(

I think the highlight of our trip, though, was getting to visit Sticky Fingers Bakery:

I got a cupcake and a Cowvin, a vanilla cream-filled oatmeal cookie sandwich.

The cupcake was pretty good. But the Cowvin?

Ahhhh-maaaaa-zing! 

We also enjoyed lots of other yummy vegan fare: spicy empanadas at Julia's Empanadas; sandwiches and salads at Java Green; Ethiopian food at Dukem; and pizza with soy cheez at Ella's Wood Fired Pizza. We loved the melting pot of different cuisines available all throughout the city!

In honor of all the multicultural restaurants and foods we enjoyed in the city, I cooked up a pot of  delicious Moroccan Bean Stew with Sweet Potatoes and Roasted Figs, courtesy of the amazing Dreena Burton. This recipe will be in her upcoming cookbook, Let Them Eat Vegan! I can't wait to get it!

The soup is supposed to have a combination of black beans and chickpeas, but I used big fat fava beans instead. I think it worked really well, and I'll make it this way from now on. This stew was so awesome!

I can't believe MoFo is drawing to an end. I hope you've been enjoying it!

Vegan MoFo Day 28: Jolly Old England, Part 2

First, a disclaimer: this is a short post. And it doesn't have a whole lot of jolly old England in it. Or jolly old English food, for that matter. But it's October 28, and I have a bit of MoFo fatigue. You got a problem with that? Take it up with this guy:

I mean, these guys:

I pity the fool that has MoFo fatigue!


As you can tell, we did visit Madame Tussauds. And no, we're not proud of it.

We also had to visit Buckingham Palace:

And take a stroll through St. James Park:

I don't remember a whole lot about what we ate on this particular trip, but I do remember ordering Thai takeout, bringing it to our hotel room, and watching Notting Hill on the telly. I mean, why actually go out and see London (right outside your hotel room) when you can just watch a movie of it instead? To quote The Biscuit on Ally McBeal: Pleeeaaase. I can't believe we did that!

Here's a healthier version of the Thai takeout we got in London: a Thai-inspired main-dish salad.

Baby romaine lettuce, carrots, broccoli, scallions, pineapple, red and yellow peppers, peanuts, and chickpeas, drizzled with a spicy cheater's peanut sauce (peanut butter, lime juice, chili powder, and tamari).

It's about as authentic as the waxy Mr. T, but it was tasty nonetheless. Just like Mr. Grant.

Vegan MoFo Day 27: Germany, Part 2

I think I got a wee bit carried away writing about Sulzfeld in my last Germany post. I promise to keep it short 'n sweet this time :)

This was the coolest hotel EVER. We spent Valentine's Day weekend 2003 in Baden-Baden in the Black Forest. This is Hotel Der Kleine Prinz. It was so expensive we could only afford to stay one night, but it was so cool. We had afternoon tea at the hotel and then visited the Friedrichsbad Roman-Irish Baths. Later that night, we got gussied up and visited the Casino Baden-Baden. People were gambling here in evening gowns and tuxedos. Very James Bond-ish!

This is a picture we took from our car as we were driving through the Alps on the way to Austria...

This is Schloss Neuschwanstein in Hohenschwangau. King Ludwig II of Bavaria lived here, and it's the castle that inspired Disney's Snow White castle.

A view from inside the castle...

This is downtown Garmisch-Partenkirchen. This town hosted the Winter Olympics in 1936.

 Here's my hubby (the man in the yellow hat...hehe) at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.

This is a photo of Heidelberg. We took a day-trip here to meet up with my hubby's cousins, who were traveling through the area. Lots of cool bridges and architecture here!

This is a picture of the Falterturm ("crooked tower") in Kitzingen. Legend has it that there is a golden ball at the top of the tower that contains the heart of Vlad Dracula, and the tower is leaning toward the cemetery across the street where he's supposedly buried. Pretty cool, huh?!

Of course, one of my favorite memories of Germany is going to all the winefests. Here's a picture of the Kitzinger Weinfest. It's a tad blurry, but hey, I was at a winefest. I think that explains everything.

Here's my Dad, my hubby, and me in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Rothenburg was about an hour's drive away from Sulzfeld, and we visited often. It is such a cool place!

The town gets all decorated for the Easter and Christmas holidays, especially. We took this photo around Easter in 2002.

And finally, a photo of Fortress Marienberg in Würzburg. Würzburg was the largest city close to Sulzfeld, about a 30-minute drive away. I remember once attending a formal dinner in the Fortress for my hubby's military unit. They served cold cucumber soup as an appetizer. Let's just say that it didn't go over so well, although I personally thought it was delicious :)

Let's face it - German cuisine is often all about the meat. I say, let them eat tempeh! Smoky Tempeh & Greens Stew from Appetite for Reduction, more specifically!

 You want some broetchen with that? How 'bout some Fancy Biscuits from How It All Vegan! instead?

Germans also love their cabbage. Here's some Cabbage and Fennel Salad with Apples and Raisins, along with some baked marinated tempeh and mashed carrots and turnips. Das ist gut!

Vegan MoFo Day 26: Paris, Part Deux

I promised we'd revisit Paris, the City of Lights and one of the most romantic cities in the world, so let's journey back there tonight. Last time I wrote about Paris, I shared the adventures of my honeymoon in 2001. This time, I'm going to write about my second trip to Paris, which was in March 2002. My parents came to visit my hubby and me in Germany, and we decided it would be fun to take a road trip to Paris. We were only going to spend 2 nights there, so we tried to see as much as we could, since it was my parents' first trip to Paris (and first trip to Europe!)

We walked along the Champs-Elysees and saw the Arc de Triomphe:

It was pretty cool underneath the Arc!

Of course, we had to go to the top. We survived the spiral staircase from hell and were rewarded with amazing views of the city:

We also visited the Musee d'Orsay, which was a real treat for me. I am happier than a pig in poo walking around art museums. The museum itself is a work of art. It's housed in a former railway station, and it's just so lovely.

The art history course I took in college really came in handy! I was basically dumbstruck coming face-to-face with literally dozens of paintings I had studied...works by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat...it was just amazing. I could just stand and stare at them all day!

But...I didn't. We had lots more of Paris to see, after all! Like Sacre-Coeur:

...and Moulin Rouge! We didn't go inside, though...it costs something like $100 to get in!

We also did something my hubby and I hadn't done on our honeymoon...we visited the Eiffel Tower at night. Wow, was that AMAZING!!

I love how the only food pic I have of Paris is my hubby and I eating donuts and drinking cappuccino in the Eiffel Tower. I mean, really, people.

I didn't eat here, but how cool was this crepe stand. They have Nutella by the truckload and a bumper sticker that says "J'<3 le pop corn." LOL

We had a lot of fun in Paris. It was great to go back and revisit some things, as well as see some things we missed the first time...and eat more chocolate croissants, of course!

Tonight I wanted something French for dinner, and what is more French than pate? 'Course, I don't do the whole animal-liver thang. I opted for some tasty Walnut-Mushroom Pate from Veganomicon. I made tartines, with toasted sourdough bread, a thick layer of pate, some sliced pearl tomatoes, shredded baby spinach, and shredded carrots.

On the side, I had a hefty salad of baby spinach, celery, and carrots, drizzled with Basic Balsamic Vinaigrette from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. I also had a big scoop of extra pate with baby carrots. Can you tell how much I love carrots?? All I needed was a glass of carrot juice to wash it all down! :)

The pate was delicious, the terrine was awesome, and it was all so much better for me than a donut and cappuccino!

Vegan MoFo Day 25: San Francisco Sourdough Salad

One of the most joyous travel experiences I've had as a vegan was taking my first-ever trek to the West Coast. In September 2007, my hubby and I flew to San Francisco for a 4-night vacation. Even though I've flown east of Rhode Island many times, I hadn't actually travelled any further west than New York (isn't that crazy!) If you don't know how crazy this is, look at a map of the USA and you'll see what I mean. Rhode Island is almost as far east as you can go, and New York isn't that far away. There was a whole bunch of the USA that I wanted to see, and I decided to go all the way to California for my first venture west.

I chose San Francisco for many reasons. For one, I think the Golden Gate Bridge is absolutely, stunningly beautiful, and I was DYING to see it. I also wanted to run across it, which I did! That was so cool! :)

This is the view of the Bridge from the top of Coit Tower. It wasn't too foggy this day, obviously!

I also chose SF because I'd always wanted to see the sea lions at Pier 39. Wow, those are noisy little fellas!

Of course, a trip to SF wouldn't be complete without stopping by Ghirardelli Square...

...or Fisherman's Wharf...

...or seeing the twisty Lombard Street (which is also the home of Scottie Ferguson, the character played by my favorite actor of all-time, James Stewart, in one of my favorite movies of all-time, Vertigo, by one of my favorite filmmakers of all-time, Alfred Hitchcock)!!

I also had to visit Alamo Square and look for the Tanner family. Where was Uncle Jesse??

I had a blast riding the cable cars...

 ...and enjoyed visiting the SF Cable Car Museum. It was fascinating!

These are the ACTUAL cables that pull the cars on the 4 main lines!

But I think my absolute favorite thing to do was visit Alcatraz. I've always been intrigued by the history (and mystery) of The Rock, so I was unbelievably psyched to book a night tour. I wanted my visit to be as creepy as possible! :) By day, it looks pretty tame...

...but by night, it's a whole different story!

 Can you imagine being in one of these cells with some of the baddest criminals around?

You could hear the frosty, bitter wind howling outside. It was definitely creepy!

Does anyone remember this episode of Unsolved Mysteries? That show used to scare me silly, but I absolutely LOVED the Alcatraz-escape episode with the "dummy heads." I was tickled to see them in person!

Some pictures are just a little eerie...like this one from the prison's kitchen. The silhouettes were done so guards could immediately tell if any of the knives were missing:

 And the infirmary was really spooky at night.

Honestly, the Alcatraz tour was one of the coolest things I've ever done! I highly recommend it if you ever visit SF, but in the meantime, you can watch two great movies - Escape from Alcatraz and Birdman of Alcatraz - if you want to get your Alcatraz fix!

But what really stole my heart was the FOOD. The abundance of delicious, vegan food! Incredible sourdough bread at Boudin Bakery:

...my first taste of Eritrean food (injera!!!!!) at Assab Eritrean Restaurant:

...and the incredible yumminess of Herbivore:

Yes, I ate, and ate well, during my 4 nights in SF. It was pure awesomeness to have so many vegan options available!!

Tonight, I wanted to remember some of that yummy San Francisco goodness. I was at Trader Joe's today and saw this:

And, of course, I had to have it (I also had to have 8 packages of seaweed crackers and a box of soy vanilla ice cream sandwiches, but that's neither here nor there). I also picked up some yummy tomatoes and some organic arugula at TJ's, but I had no plans for them. I was trying to think of what to do with the sourdough, and the arugula, and the tomatoes, when boom, it hit me: panzanella! I found an easy-peasy recipe for Tuscan Bread and Tomato Salad in 1,000 Vegan Recipes and decided to put a San Franciscan-style spin on it. I made croutons with the sourdough bread and served the salad over a big bed of arugula. It was....amazing.

I added some chickpeas on the side to boost the protein factor. And also because chickpeas are awesome.

Make this salad! And make me stop eating the rest of the sourdough bread, will ya?